Maryland’s Enchanted Forest Was Abandoned In 1889, And Now It’s Slowly Being Devoured By Nature

How does an Enchanted Forest look like? Once upon a time, just like in fairy tales, Enchanted Forest was very much part of the entertainment industry and it was situated in the woods of Baltimore. However, these days, the gingerbread cottage and other attractions are just rotting away. America’s entertainment industry was slowly gaining momentum in the 1950s after the WWII was over. The economy was growing and Americans had enough disposable incomes. Theme parks were gaining popularity as it served the perfect place where families can enjoy together. Disneyland was launched in California and on the eastern coast, the people witnessed several low-key entertainment parks. Now steering back to the story of Enchanted Forest, it opened its gate first in 1955. Unlike Disneyland or other entertainment parks, Enchanted Forest had no complex rides, instead, it encouraged children’s imagination and the characters stepped straight out of a fairytale. The most popular character was the Gingerbread man and Cinderella. When you start going around the park, you would have come across huge statues of the gingerbread man, as it was a favorite character during that period in time. Not many fancy rides were introduced, except for the teacup ride that went with the theme of Alice in Wonderland and a cavern adventure based on Ali Baba and Forty Thieves. There was a time in the early 80s when the park attracted almost 400,000 visitors every season. That was the time when TV or video games didn’t take over the imagination of the kids and they still loved to explore things in person. With time, high-tech parks were introduced and Enchanted Forest started losing its old world charm to the new developments. In 1988, the Enchanted Forest met its sad ending when it was sold off for $4.5 million. Eventually, half of the park was demolished to build shopping centers and the other half was reopened for the visitors once again in 1994, but the final curtain came down soon. In 2004, Linda Harrison Gardner went to visit her father’s Enchanted Forest only to find the ruins of Cinderella’s castle. In 2005, the work of preserving the old world charm was taken over by the Enchanted Forest Preservation Society. Though they are working hard to preserve everything, still the conditions of several attractions are far too severe. It is sad that such a wonderful piece of Maryland history has been left to decay. The Three Bear’s House, the Mount Vesuvius giant slide, and the Old Woman’s Shoe has been preserved and placed at Clark’s Elioak Farm to entertain kids of new generations. In 2015, Clark’s Elioak Farm celebrated the 60 years of Enchanted Forest.